Monthly Archives: April 2016

Jake Parker is an American illustrator living in Utah. After 15 years working in animation in studios such as Blue Sky, Fox and Warner he started on his own as a freelance illustrator. This series on the ships of Star Wars transformed into monsters is just ‘geeky’ heaven, and I strongly advise you to go take a look at his work on his website and his Instagram account !

Lucasfilm have just released a gallery of ‘Official’ Press Images for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, all from the Teaser Trailer.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Death Star Construction

The first image from the trailer starts with Mon Mothma saying “We have a mission for you. A major weapons test is imminent. And we need to know what it is and how to destroy it,”. Since we all know what ‘that’ weapon is, we get to see the giant laser focus get installed on the Death Star while we see Star Destroyers at various levels in this shot which gives us a great feeling of scale.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Jyn Erso Played by Felicity Jones

The next shot is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) as the trailer lists her criminal background as “forgery of Imperial documents, possession of stolen property, aggravated assault, resisting arrest.” Interesting is that Erso is shackled in the Rebel base on Yavin 4. Mon Mothma then judgingly says “On your own from the age of 15, reckless, aggressive, and undisciplined.” In addition to this scene having perfect recreation of the command center in A New Hope, the Mon Mothma casting is so on point, this is Genevieve O’Reilly, who played the young Mon Mothma in a deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith.

Erso rebuttal is, “This is a rebellion isn’t it? I rebel.” to which Mon Mothma gives a look of amusement and almost disappointment.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Ben Mendelsohn

This image of Ben Mendelsohn caused a bit of a stir on the net, with good money on him being a member of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) which is still canon thanks to Kallus from Star Wars Rebels, although he never wears the white uniform the old Expanded Universe (EU) gave the ISB—and which was based on some white uniforms seen on the first Death Star. The old EU also gave the all-white uniform to Imperial Grand Admirals which Mendelsohn’s Imperial ID badge indicates he is, he’s also very reminiscent of EU fan favorite, Thrawn. On the whole, the fact he appears to be on the Death Star with the same planetary schematic behind him from A New Hope really does tips the balance that he’s a Grand Admiral.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images The Dark Trooper

This is the shot we saw in the tease for this trailer, and it’s an all black trooper. Still no clue if it’s a Shadow Trooper or Death Trooper or what, but there is something burning in background. Also, moisture vaporators like the from the Lars Homestead.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Donnie Yen

Forest Whitaker’s character voices over this new scene.“What will you do if they catch you? What will they do if they break you?”We see Donnie Yen appear to be wanted by the Empire. He’s also basically a what looks to be a blind space samurai, so I think he joins the team on this planet. Note the crashed X-Wing in the background.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Jyn Erso in Imperial Tie-Fighter Pilot Uniform Played by Felicity Jones

Whitaker continues his voiceover in this scene with “what will you become?” as we see Erso in what certainly looks like a TIE pilot’s flightsuit—but given that this is a heist movie, and she’s on an Imperial shop of some kind, looks can be deceiving.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Forest Whitaker

Eventually Forest Whitaker appears! His armor is much bulkier than we usually see in the Star Wars universe. And he looks like he has a limp, but he could still completely destroy you. The net say’s he’s based on what we’ve heard about his character’s code name, “Eel Leader,” he’s a bounty hunter. Which would make sense, since he wasn’t in the photo of Erso’s team. His monologue is throughout the trailer.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images AT AT Walker Assault

The Empire brought a ton of AT-ATs to this fight, and I’m pretty sure that Erso, Luna, and maybe Riz Ahmed are running from the lasers. By the way, the AT-AT’s seem to move more gracefully than in Empire Strikes Back and the red on the faces gives them a very ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Cylon-esque feel. They also have a very subtle and menacing ‘serpent’ style redesign to the head.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Diego Luna

As Mon Mothma gives us the Erso backstory, Diego Luna’s as yet unnamed character looks on. Based on where he is and how he’s acting, I’m betting hard on him being the Rebel officer in good standing assigned to this mission. Plus I’ve still got my money on him playing Biggs Darklighter.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Jiang Wen

Jiang Wen runs in some sort of specially powered armor/weapon.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Yavin 4 Rebel Base

Gareth Edwards and his team has perfectly recreated the Yavin 4 base. There’s an astromech droids, X-Wings and get to see a GNK power droid (or Gonk droid). That walking trash can droid has shown up over and over again, including The Force Awakens, but it’s good to see it back:

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Press Images Ben Mendelsohn

Ben Mendelsohn really does make the Empire look foreboding, he also appears to be surveying the damage after the battle on that beach planet. Lots of dead soldiers, but I also think I see a burning X-wing X-foil in the background there.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Banner2

The most surprising thing about these images and trailer is that it’s almost all action and almost all shots of characters alone. No footage of anyone acting like a team, despite the fact that the first photo we got from this movie was the cast all arrayed like one badass ‘Go Rogue’ team The tone was also a lot more action than espionage or heist, and not as dark and ‘R’ rated as I was hoping.

Following up the awe-inspiring teaser trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm has now revealed a teaser poster for the film. The poster is simple but powerful, featuring Rogue One logo and a release month at the bottom, similar to the first poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A notable addition to this poster is the tagline “A rebellion built on hope” near the top. Check out the full ‘Hi-Res’ Rogue One Teaser poster below!

Lucasfilm has revealed the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Product Packaging! So get your first look at the ‘Official’ merchandise packaging for the upcoming film.

Like in the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story teaser trailer, the packaging features prominently the black armored stormtrooper, as are the new designs for the Imperial AT-AT Walkers and some classic TIE fighters.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story Official Merchandise Packaging

The design for the Rogue One packaging that will be seen on all Star Wars merchandise beginning in this autumn.

Rogue One Official Trailer just landed and it is an incredible first teaser trailer for Lucasfilm’s AStar Wars Story! This movie looks absolutely badass in totally every way! There is so much stuff going on in this trailer and we are going to have a lot of fun dissecting the socks out of it. There are so many nods and winks to so many things that we will recognize from the original Star Wars trilogy. This trailer just blew my mind.

When I first saw the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens it brought tears of happiness and excitement, and this one did just the same. It looks like director Gareth Edwards has pulled off something quite amazing with this film, right now I can hardly contain that excitement. I’m exploding with geek joy!